Jude Bellingham gave an interview at the end of last season to Real Madrid TV on the pitch at the Santiago Bernabeu.
He was asked, in Spanish, if he ever imagined he’d have such an incredible first season. He replied, in Spanish: ‘It’s a lot easier when you are playing with the best players in the world.’ He then asked viewers to forgive him that his Spanish wasn’t perfect yet, hugged the interviewer Victorio Calero, and shouted ‘Hala Madrid!’.
The England midfielder had just completed the Champions League and La Liga double. He was speaking in Spanish to the club television channel, and passing credit on to his team-mates.
Suggest he’s too arrogant for his own good to any of the owners of the bars and cafes open around Real Madrid’s stadium on a matchday and you’ll get your ‘patatas bravas’ served cold and your ‘cerveza’ warm.
Others in Spain might disagree. When on the opening day of last season, he did his stretched-out arms celebration in front of the Athletic Bilbao fans at San Mames some of the locals were upset.
Jude Bellingham starred during his first season at Real Madrid as the club won the LaLiga, Champions League and Spanish Supercup
Bellingham has become a protected jewel at Madrid after starring since making his switch to the city
Athletic forward Iker Muniain pointed at him and then at the ground telling him: ‘you don’t do that sort of thing here!’
He upset some referees too. Match official Jorge Figueroa told him in English in one game: ‘Be careful with me!’ because he felt Bellingham had overstepped the mark in terms of backchat. But what do Madrid supporters care about what might upset the sensitivities of other clubs, or wind-up referees?
They want to win and with 23 goals last season including two that won ‘el Clasico’ home and away, Bellingham helped them do that. The manner of his first season at Madrid cannot be forgotten when looking at the impact he had on the England squad in Germany this summer.
When Bellingham arrived at Madrid a year ago there was a leadership deficit. Karim Benzema was the father figure to a young group of players and he had just left for Saudi Arabia. No one expected a player who was just 20 to fill that void, but he did.
It was Bellingham in only his third game who stopped loanee keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga leaving the pitch on his own and pushed him towards applauding Madrid fans.
Bellingham had scored the winner in the 1-0 victory but he pointed to the top of Kepa’s head and urged supporters to hail the keeper’s performance. It was a Friday night win and it meant coach Carlo Ancelotti had to keep his word on a promise to give the players three days off.
Bellingham then led team-mates Rodrygo, Aurelien Tchouameni and Eduardo Camavinga on an away-day at the Verde Beach Club in Saint-Tropez.
Vinicius was unable to attend but is part of the group that formed around Bellingham. He already seemed like a big brother to the Brazilian on the pitch despite being three years younger.
Bellingham has plugged the leadership void at Madrid and forged strong bonds with Vinicius Jnr (middle) and Rodrygo (right)
When Bellingham did his stretched-out arms celebration in front of the Athletic Bilbao fans at San Mames last season some of the locals were upset
Madrid team-mate Dani Carvajal (right) tipped Bellingham for the Ballon d’Or before Spain’s Euro 2024 final win over England
The senior players could have resented the new Mr. Popular but Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Dani Carvajal and Joselu all accepted what felt like a new hierarchy.
Joselu it was who consoled Bellingham on the pitch in Berlin after the final. Carvajal said in an interview before the game that his English team-mate would be a worthy Ballon d’Or winner.
They are all old enough to know you sink at Madrid without a bit of bravado. Extreme self-confidence is fine as long as you back it up. And he did.
Bellingham himself previously dispelled his was ‘arrogant’ and insisted his attitude makes him ‘special’
Bellingham himself told L’Equipe last year after he’d won the Kopa prize awarded to the best Under-21 player: ‘I don’t think it’s arrogance. When you play with doubt and worry you start to lose what makes you special.’
Off the pitch in Madrid he’s seen as polite and good-humoured but very much part of a new world where clubs control and produce their own media output forsaking almost all others.
One Spanish reporter who followed him from his arrival last June told me: ‘He has always been really nice with us within what the club allows (in terms of access).
‘We could speak to him last pre-season and he came across as a very nice guy, warm and funny.
‘We haven’t seen as much of him after games during the season, but when he has spoken he’s certainly never come across as arrogant completely the opposite.’
Bellingham gave no interviews throughout the season despite across-the-board requests from multiple Spanish media but that’s a reflection of Madrid’s policy.
So this is the environment Bellingham left to join up with England, and it’s the one he will go back to at the start of next month. He joined Gareth Southgate’s group as the only player to have done the league and Champions League double.
England has a Ballon D’or candidate in Bellingham vying for the prize to be awarded this October with Rodri and Vinicius
Only he knows if the degree to which the lack of Vincius-like runs being made ahead of him or an absence of some Carlo Ancelotti-like in-game changes got to him during that frustrating final.
It will be up to the new England manager to decide whether his number 10 needs bringing down a peg or two, or if it’s the team that needs to be hoisted up to another level – the sort that 15-times European Cup winners Real Madrid operate on.
In Madrid that choice will be seen as a no-brainer. England has a Ballon D’or candidate vying for the prize to be awarded this October with Rodri and Vinicius.
Bellingham will be the first Englishman on the podium since Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard in 2005. For 19 years no English player has come close. Accept a little arrogance. Plug-in to the supreme self-confidence. A little of the ‘who else?’ swagger never did Real Madrid any harm.
